<h1>Initialize</h1>

<p>Initialize is used to specify a sequence of actions that are executed to initialise 
 a movie clip before it is displayed. It implements the #initclip pragma in the ActionScript language.</p>

<table>

<tr>
<th nowrap>Field Name</th>
<th>Type</th>
<th>Size</th>
<th>Description</th>
</tr>

<tr>
<td nowrap valign="top"><a name="ActionType">Type</a></td>
<td nowrap valign="top">unsigned int</td>
<td nowrap valign="top" align="right">8</td>
<td>Identifies the action when it is encoded.</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td nowrap valign="top"><a name="ActionLength">Length</a></td>
<td nowrap valign="top">unsigned int</td>
<td nowrap valign="top" align="right">16</td>
<td>The number of bytes in the rest of the encoded action. The total number of
bytes in the encoded action is Length+3.</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td nowrap valign="top">identifier</td>
<td nowrap valign="top">unsigned int</td>
<td nowrap valign="top" align="right">16</td>
<td>The identifier of the movie clip definition.</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td nowrap valign="top">actions</td>
<td nowrap valign="top">Action[n]</td>
<td nowrap valign="top" align="right">&nbsp;</td>
<td>An array of actions that will be executed to initialize the movie clips.</td>
</tr>

</table>

<p>Unlike the DoAction instruction which specifies the actions that are executed 
when a particular frame is displayed the actions contained in an Initialize 
instruction are executed only once, regardless of where it is included in 
a movie. If a frame containing the Initialize instruction is played again the 
actions are skipped. Also there can only be one Initialize instruction for each 
movie clip.</p>

<h2>History</h2>

<p>Initialize represents the DoInitAction tag from the Macromedia Flash (SWF) File Format Specification. It was introduced in Flash 6.</p>

